Shusaku Endo

Shusaku Endo was born in Tokyo and grew up in Manchuria, China, where his father was transferred for work. When he was 10 years old his parents split up, and he moved with his mother back to Japan. They moved to Kobe, where his mother's sister lived, and she convinced Endo and his mother to convert to her Catholic faith.

As a young adult Endo attended Keio University, where he studied French literature - much to the dismay of his distant father, who wanted him to be a doctor. Poor living...

Shusaku Endo Essays

One thing that Shusaku Endo’s Silence and Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis have in common is the aftertaste they leave in the reader’s intellectual palate. Unlike most authors, Endo and Kafka refuse to oblige the readers with a satisfying happy...

Shusaku Endo’s Silence follows the experience of the young Catholic missionary Father Rodrigues and his companion Father Garrpe in their attempt to help the brutally oppressed Christians of 17th century Japan. As a 20th-century novel, Silence...